


Human

by Signe (oxoniensis)



Category: Luther (TV)
Genre: Canon Character of Color, Character of Color, Chess, Frottage, Fucked up men, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-13
Updated: 2011-12-13
Packaged: 2017-10-27 07:19:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/293132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oxoniensis/pseuds/Signe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You always do the opposite of what people expect?" John's amused at the idea, the side of his mouth tilting up in an approximation of a smile. The smile's more obvious in his eyes, the way they turn warm.</p><p>"Only you," Mark says. He likes seeing John off balance. John's more dangerous like that. It's like baiting a tiger. Mark never used to be like this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Human

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Isagel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isagel/gifts).



> For Isagel's prompt: John/Mark, chess. Beta thanks to [Lenore](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Lenore). Originally posted [here](http://oxoniensis.livejournal.com/495519.html).
> 
> Set between season 1 and 2, so spoilers up to 2x01.

Mark chooses black.

*

It starts as expected. White pawn to E4.

Black pawn to E5. The choice of black wasn't about Mark showing his belly. Far from it.

*

The board's half empty, and either of them could win. "What now?" Mark asks. He isn't talking about the game.

"Now we move on," John says.

"Have you?" Mark asks, though he knows the answer. They're sitting here, in Mark's temporary home, curtains drawn against the dark. Against the world. They're both a long way from moving on. A better question might have been _do you want to move on?_ _Do you really want it, deep down, or does it still feel too much like letting go_?

John lets out a long breath, and contemplates the pieces in front of him. He moves his bishop. Mark can't work out his end game. John doesn't answer.

They're drinking tea. Yorkshire Gold. Zoe used to drink Earl Grey. Mark threw the last of the packet out even though he liked it too, and now he drinks Yorkshire Gold because it's the first box his hand landed on in the supermarket. It's as far away from Zoe as he could get, and yet he still thinks of her when he drinks it. Sometimes he can't win.

He'll get the scotch out later. It's a night for good scotch, the burn of it, the way it softens the edges. The light is dim. A forty-watt bulb and the stubs of two fat creamy church candles that flicker in the draft from the door. Not enough for the size of the room, but it lets the corners fade into the shadows. Scotch and shadows and a game of chess, and the hulk of John Luther across the table. It shouldn't be comfortable, but it is.

Mark moves a pawn. An aggressive move. He'll lose it in two more moves, but it should net him a knight.

*

John's hand is hovering over his rook. "Why did you chose black?" he asks out of nowhere.

Mark didn't expect John to ask. He isn't the kind of man who admits when he doesn't understand someone's motivations. He likes to tell people, not ask. Mostly he asks questions when he knows the answers, when he's leading a suspect into a trap. Or when he's frustrated. This is neither. He simply looks curious. "Because you'd expect me to chose white," Mark says. It's half the truth. John can work out the rest.

"You always do the opposite of what people expect?" John's amused at the idea, the side of his mouth tilting up in an approximation of a smile. The smile's more obvious in his eyes, the way they turn warm.

"Only you," Mark says. He likes seeing John off balance. John's more dangerous like that. It's like baiting a tiger. Mark never used to be like this.

*

Mark can't find any glasses for the scotch — there are some in boxes, but he dumped all the boxes in one room when he moved and hasn't gone in there since — so he rinses their mugs and pours generously.

"This won't help you win," John says as he takes a gulp.

"I wouldn't be so sure," Mark says and swirls the liquid around in his own mug. He sips it slowly, savouring it, contemplating the board. They stopped timing their moves ten minutes ago. Both their kings are near the centre.

*

"What are you expecting me to do now?" There's a point to Mark's question — he just needs to work out what it is. This game's nearly over. He's going to lose unless John makes a careless move, and that's not going to happen, even with the level of scotch in the bottle steadily sinking.

John ponders the question. "Throw me out. Kick me to the curb." John's had more to drink than Mark, but he isn't slurring his words or playing the game any less competently than when he was fully sober.

"That's what you'd do? If you were in my shoes? Just kick me out?" Mark doesn't believe it. John's the sort who'd take in strays, doesn't kick people out. Unless they betray him, and then he'd do more than that.

"Yeah. Probably." A beat. "I don't know. I don't know what I'd do any more."

Mark doesn't think John makes admissions like that very often. "I'm not going to throw you out."

"You should. It'd be the smart thing to do," John says, as though he's giving advice.

"We're neither of us about self-preservation, though, are we? Not any more." The candle in the middle of the table is flickering out, the wick about to sink into the wax. "Were you ever?"

John shrugs and spends longer evaluating the question than a rational man should require. But then neither of them has been entirely rational lately. "Yeah. Yeah, I was, once. At the beginning. When I had Zoe and a career and—" He peters off into silence.

"You still have a career," Mark points out. They both still do, even if they've put everything on hold. Life in limbo, that's what this is. The half-light of the forty-watt bulb and church candles seems particularly appropriate now.

Mark's had enough scotch. Any more and he'll get maudlin.

"Just about. It doesn't seem to matter any more though," he says, and Mark can hear the dawning understanding in John's voice, that he's gone from living for his job to contemplating living without it entirely.

"I know the feeling," Mark says. A few months ago he'd have been horrified to think he'd empathise with a man like John Luther. Now he thinks they're the only two people in the world who can fully understand each other.

"So, not going to throw me out. What are you going to do?" John challenges.

Mark leans forward, his elbows on the table and chin on his hands. "We could fuck," he suggests. It's not entirely out of the blue. He's considered it. He even once wondered what it'd be like to share Zoe with John, feel the heat of him through her, and then he'd felt sick with himself for thinking of her like that, as something to be shared.

John snorts. It's the second time Mark has surprised him this evening, or the third, possibly. He made a move earlier that had earned him first a raised eyebrow, and then a murmur of appreciation as John saw the pay off, though Mark thinks that was less surprise than approval. "You want to fuck?"

"Why not?"

"You sound like Alice."

"Like Alice?" Mark laughs, a loud bark that echoes from the beams in the ceiling. "Really?"

"Needs must, and all that. Not many men available where she is."

Mark can easily imagine Alice with another woman. Their fleshy curves squashed together, soft breasts and the white rounded swell of her backside wriggling in enjoyment. All that auburn hair spilling over her face, but not hiding her eyes, because she'd want to see everything. He wonders if John sees the same images. He wonders if John and Alice have ever fucked. He doesn't think so, though Alice definitely wanted to. Mark's sure of that. John probably, too.

Strange to think he's fantasising about a killer. A woman who's killed at least three people without regret. But then he's a killer too, now. _Do it, do it, do it_. He's a killer, cold-blooded, blank-faced, full of hate. A little bit dead inside, by his own hand, by his own call. _Do it, do it, do it_. He didn't feel better afterwards, or worse. He didn't feel guilty. Just numb. And then it was all about getting John away safely, getting him out of the way and his wound stitched up so Alice could take the fall. She'd tucked the shotgun under her arm and told them that was what was going to happen. Ordered Mark to get John out of the building. The only time she raised her voice was when he'd hesitated. "Get him out of here, or I'll frame you for this," she'd said, smiling her promise, enunciating every word slowly and clearly so there'd be no misunderstanding, and he'd believed her.

She'd worked out all the details herself. What she'd say, how she'd act. Mark's sure there's more to the plan that he's not in on, but he won't ask. He doesn't really care.

He cares about John, though, in some strange fashion. He wants to know John's going to be okay, that he'll get past all this. That they'll both get past it. And the only time Mark doesn't feel numb, when there's warmth in his gut instead of a cold knot, is when he's with John. So maybe fucking him is the logical progression.

"I'm not suggesting it because you're my only option," Mark says. Though that's not as true as it would have been. Since he moved into this semi-derelict row, he hasn't seen a single one of his old friends. Most of them were his and Zoe's friends, other couples. He doesn't want to see them. The rest—he doesn't want to see them either.

"No, I don't suppose I am." John doesn't contradict him, though he could easily. Instead, he moves a piece. Mark has to look closely at the board to work out which piece — he's lost concentration. John's promoted his last pawn.

"Are we still playing?" Mark asks, deliberately vague. He doesn't have a move planned.

"You could resign."

Mark's position isn't quite that hopeless yet. "Or we could finish later," he says, getting up. John hasn't given him a verbal response to his suggestion of fucking, but he hasn't rejected it either. And Mark wants this. This connection, a warm body to touch. He wants something more than his own hand in the shower, too tired some mornings even to manage that.

Mark's been sleeping on the sofa most of the time, sitting up late reading or watching the telly until he falls asleep where he is, but there's a bed made up in the front bedroom. He heads there.

The stairs creak badly under the weight of both of them.

The bedroom is warm enough. There's a radiator on the back wall, a huge old one with peeling beige paint that looks like it belongs in a school or a hospital. It gurgles at intervals. Mark still shivers as he pulls off his jacket, then unbuttons his shirt.

"Got anything up here?" John asks, looking around, and for a moment Mark has to think what he means.

"Top drawer," he says automatically, because that's where it would have been, but he knows before John gets the drawer open what he'll find. There's nothing there. There's been no need. He holds out his hands ruefully. "So much for being spontaneous," he says as John closes the drawer.

"We can still—" John's eyes are narrowed. He's not a man easily deterred. He starts stripping carelessly, three layers pulled over his head in one go. There's a scar on his belly, just above his belt, an ugly raised slash of paler skin. It's deceptively small. Mark saw the wound bleeding, seeping through John's shirt. He feels more now at the sight of the scar than he did when he saw the knife on the ground and John clutching his side, blood slithering through his fingers. He didn't really care back then if John lived or died, not in that too-long moment when all he could feel was the burning desire to shut Ian Reed up, to make him pay, to watch him drop to the ground and the light go out of his eyes.

He can't stop staring at it now though.

"You can change your mind," John says, voice rough and almost gentle, and Mark suddenly doesn't know how long he's been standing there staring. He's clasping his arms across his chest, frozen in place.

"We're pretty fucked up, huh," Mark says. He doesn't want to change his mind. He doesn't know what he wants.

That's a lie. He wants to forget, and this seems like as good a way as any.

John looks like he doesn't give a fuck what happens next, but there's something in his stance, in the quietness of his offer just now that belies his look.

So Mark moves. He means to undo John's belt and flies, and then he has some vague idea of getting on his knees. Instead he finds himself touching, circling the scar with his index finger. It's still rough, scabbed at the lower edge. It's their only point of connection, Mark's finger and John's scar, inches separating the rest of them, but Mark feels warmer already. He closes his eyes, still circling with his finger, sweeping wider so that his finger brushes against the belt. He can hear John breathing, slow and steady. Calm. He's felt John when he's not been calm, fist to face, breathing fast and hard. He wants to hear that again.

They're closer, close enough that when they both exhale there's a brush of skin. Mark slips two fingers under the belt, then the same with his other hand. He tugs, and John moves. Half a step at most. That's all it takes.

John's belt buckle is pressing against Mark's stomach.

The kiss is the last thing Mark expects. Kisses in his experience are soft and warm and comforting, joyful hellos and lazy lovemaking. This is nothing like that. Kisses are for lovers. They're not even friends, but John's kissing him. His jaw first, and then Mark turns his head, lifts his face up, doesn't even mean to, it just happens, and he's kissing back. It's clashing and painful and he doesn't want it to stop.

They probably should stop. Pull apart and say something, but fuck that. Mark fumbles between them, undoing buckles and buttons, and then John gets with the program, shoving his hand down the front of Mark's briefs. No finesse, Mark just ruts up against the pressure, pushing into the heat of John's hand, and John does the same.

It's not enough though. "On the bed," Mark demands, says it like he believes John's going to do as he's told. Maybe it's the tone, or maybe John just wants the same thing, but he edges backwards until his knees hit the bed and then drops down on his back. He spreads his thighs and rubs the heel of his hand against the bulge in his crotch. He grins, a come-and-get-it grin.

For a moment, Mark just stands and watches. Takes it all in. Ignores the need for John's hand back on his dick. John's built. It's obvious, even fully dressed, but half naked like this brings it home. There's a trace of fat, just enough to show that John likes the good life, enjoys a few drinks. Or maybe it's just that he lives on takeaway these days, no time or inclination to cook healthy food. There's thick muscle underneath, though, ridges across his belly, bulk in his shoulders and solid arms and thighs, and if it came to a fight, well, Mark's scrappy but he wouldn't stand a chance.

He doesn't want to fight. Not right now. Maybe some other time he will. John can be maddening, exasperating in his arrogance, and Mark knows there'll be times he wants to punch him. But not now. Now he wants to look his fill.

The marled grey of boxer briefs shows above the open vee of John's jeans, a thatch of wiry black pubic hair visible where Mark's pushed his briefs down. This still isn't enough.

Mark tugs at John's jeans, and John lifts his hips obligingly, lets them puddle around his ankles.

Mark steps out of his own jeans, into the space between John's knees, and then kneels down on top of John. They're still not fully skin to skin, but the dry friction feels good. Just on the edge of uncomfortable.

Mark presses his face into John's neck. Whispers in his ear. Nonsense and insults, petty rubbish.

"You can't rile me up like that, you know. I'm not that easy," John says, and that's the thing, Mark's not trying to rile him up, not really. He just doesn't know what to say or how to be quiet, and if he doesn't talk he thinks he might sob, so he carries on talking until John pulls his face around with both hands and kisses him silent, not stopping until they're both breathless. The only sound then is the rumble of hot water in the pipes, their breathing, and the rub and slap of skin and cotton between them. Mark keeps breathing, and it's okay. The silence is okay. He holds on, his hand on John's flank, fingers rubbing over the scar again, and it's okay.

John's rocking up into him now, all rhythm gone, his breathing as ragged as Mark's, as fast and hard as when they fought. Mark is so close he can feel it, the itch under his skin, the tightening in his balls, but he grits his teeth and pushes down, forcing his thigh up against John's dick, making him come first. He does with a grunt and final shove upwards of his hips, and Mark sinks his teeth into John's shoulder at the same time, hard enough to bruise, ruts fast and furious, and that's all it takes.

It's a long time before they pull apart, and even then it's just far enough to wipe their hands on the nearest shirt and when Mark drops the shirt, he doesn't move any distance, still half his body on top of John.

"Feel better?" John asks, like the cocky bastard he is. The worst of it is, Mark would be lying if he said no, if he pretended it didn't feel good lying here, warm and sated. Better than half a bottle of scotch. Better than checkmate. This whole thing is probably a colossal mistake, but right now, Mark feels human, and John feels human underneath him, human and alive, and that's enough.

So he tells the truth. "Yeah," he says, and rubs the finger against the mark he just made on John's shoulder. "Yeah, I feel better."


End file.
